Brodense

 Odense is a town of about 200,000 people. It’s a university town, but they’re on summer break now so the town feels more deserted. Basically, it’s European Eugene. A Eugene that’s actually bike-able, busable, and walkable. We met with Connie, a long time worker for the city’s transportation planning department. She gave us a presentation about Odense and then took us on a walking tour to point out recent projects. Turns out it was the right time to visit. Connie explained that just a couple of months prior, they had fully completed their long-term transportation plan. A “way too ambitious” plan that they actually succeeded in fully implementing. 

During the peak of motordom in Denmark, city planners decided to eminent domain a few miles of medieval structures to build a 6-lane highway through the middle of their town. They plowed them down and paved over them and then immediately realized they made a huge mistake. 

Over the next 40 or so years they’ve been slowly restitching the urban fabric that this highway had so deeply disrupted. This was the part that blew my mind. It gives me inspiration for retrofitting overbuilt roads to meet social, economic, and climate needs of American cities. They basically infilled the overbuilt road with a dense neighborhood. The streets are winding and built to limit car use and access by design. As part of their re-allocation of the public space, they built a light rail system. The system is cheap, comprehensive, smooth, and runs in the same right of way that peds and bikers use with no conflict. Under many parts of the light rail, instead of brick, they’ve laid grass. I felt like I was in the city of the future watching the train go by, surrounded by greenery, peds, and bikers, not a car in sight.

Also of note, went to the Tour de France. It was SO cool but SO crowded. It was also a brilliant sight in terms of reclaiming car space for public benefit. The finish line was at the outskirts of the town of Nybørg in what looked like any old gas station McDonald’s, or convenience store highway turnoff. Basically just a huge sprawling parking lot with some fast food places and gas stations. The tour shut down at least 5 square miles to car traffic and turned the area into a Tour de France festival. Thousands of people were there celebrating and waiting for the finish. We were able to muscle our way to get an okay view of the racers just before they crossed the finish line. Pics below!